Step by Step

Step 1: Check if virtualization is enabled

command 1

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grep -Ec '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

command 2

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lscpu | grep -i Virtualization

• VT-x for Intel
• AMD-Vi for AMD

ensure that your kernel includes KVM modules

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zgrep CONFIG_KVM /proc/config.gz

• y = Yes (always installed)
• m = Loadable module

Step 2: Install the required KVM packages

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sudo pacman -S qemu-full qemu-img libvirt virt-install virt-manager virt-viewer \
edk2-ovmf dnsmasq swtpm guestfs-tools libosinfo tuned

• qemu-full - user-space KVM emulator, manages communication between hosts and VMs
• qemu-img - provides create, convert, modify, and snapshot, offline disk images
• libvirt - an open-source API, daemon, and tool for managing platform virtualization
• virt-install - CLI tool to create guest VMs
• virt-manager - GUI tool to create and manage guest VMs
• virt-viewer - GUI console to connect to running VMs
• edk2-ovmf - enables UEFI support for VMs
• dnsmasq - lightweight DNS forwarder and DHCP server
• swtpm - TPM (Trusted Platform Module) emulator for VMs
• guestfs-tools - provides a set of extended CLI tools for managing VMs
• libosinfo - a library for managing OS information for virtualization.
• tuned - system tuning service for linux allows us to optimise the hypervisor for speed.

Enable and start libvirt daemon

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sudo systemctl enable libvirtd.service
sudo systemctl start libvirtd.service

Troubleshooting

No internet in guest os

You need to set firewall_backend = "iptables" in /etc/libvirt/network.conf

Then restart the service:

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sudo systemctl restart libvirtd

source: https://superuser.com/questions/1671932/unable-to-connect-to-internet-in-windows-10-vm-using-kvm-qemu

Error Operation not supported: Cannot use direct socket mode if no URI is set

solution

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systemctl start virtqemud.socket

source: https://libvirt.org/kbase/failed_connection_after_install.html

Error Failed to connect socket to '/var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock': Connection refused

run

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sudo setfacl -m user:$USER:rw /var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock

then

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sudo systemctl enable libvirtd
sudo systemctl start libvirtd

source: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/64130268/error-failed-to-connect-socket-to-var-run-libvirt-libvirt-sock-connection-r

References

• https://kskroyal.com/how-to-install-qemu-kvm-on-linux/
• https://gist.github.com/tatumroaquin/c6464e1ccaef40fd098a4f31db61ab22
• https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/create-vm-using-the-qcow2-image-file-in-kvm/